Anyone ever tried a Sabichi rig to catch bait size tilapia? I am affraid throwing a cast net is outside of my talents. At least the last time I tried was horibly unsuccessful.

Wont work. They dont eat sabichies.

seriously though. they eat algea. unless you find a place where there are a bunch of little ones that are starving you wont catch them on a hook very often if at all.

Practice with a 3 ft net .... then work your way up to the larger net. I have netted tilapia with the 3ft net ......

Agreed, I started with a 3.5 ft net, watched some videos on it, praticed in the back yard a couple days and no problem after that. now I have a 7 footer.

How about a bow and arrow....

you tube has great instructional videos

I have heard they will bite on small red, wiggler worms or crickets.

I caught one a couple of weeks ago on a standard size Pop-R at Lake Fairfield

I catch a lot of Tilapia every year about this time, a whole lot of Tilapia. Over the years, I've developed my own technique and it works well for me in ponds. I do catch Tilapia randomly also while fishing for bass and/or bluegill, but it is not often...when I'm seriously after Tilapia, this is what I do:

The first thing I do is try to isolate the Tilapia away from the bluegill. I use range cubes to do that. Generally bluegill (BG)aren't that into range cubes but Tilapia are attracted to them. This step is absolutely necessary because Tilapia are not as aggressive nor as fast to the bait as BG so that any worms or whatever bait you choose a BG will get it first just about every time. Forget Tilapia if lots of BG are present.

I put the range cubes in a shallow area that is warmed by afternoon sun....I also usually will throw some fish food pellets well out away from that area to further draw BG away.

When set-up properly, I can then catch all the Tilapia I want. I prefer mealy worms from Academy but regular worms certainly work.I put the mealy worm on the tip of a small jig and just vertical jig over the Tilapia. Usually its one fish after the other...nice 1 to 3 pound fish. Perfect for eating.

Now, recognize that I'm talking about Mozambique Tilapia not Blue Tilapia which is common in our power plant lakes. Haven't yet tried this technique on a power plant lake and Blue Tilapia but hope to do so sometime.

Here's a typical evening catch...could get many more, but only take enough for dinner and go back the next day or so and get some more. This lasts from the first cool front until really cold weather shuts the Tilapia down...at water temps around 60 degrees.

try this

On todays Dirty Jobs show, Mike was in some county in South Carolina I think thaTS where, amyway he was at sewer plant and they put Talapia in some of the purifer tanks and the fish eat the fecal matter (Tur--) as the grow they are sold to wholesalers that clean and freeze then sell to restaurants and grocery stores.

Actualy Mike on Dirty Jobs was at a plant that raised Striped Bass and the Talapia lived "down stream" in the ponds and lived off the fecal matter from the striped bass. BOTH were sold to stores for retail sale. Special huh? Talapia will hammer a rattletrap in the spring when "ripping" them shallow on points for bass at Fayette County Lake!

361V, Thank you for getting my story correct, at least I had
fecal matter correct.